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Saturday, May 3, 2008

Libertarian Party Executive Director Shane Cory announced his resignation from his post with the national LP staff this week. (The announcement can also be found from the LP's website as well.)

Here's the transcript of his resignation in its entirety:

Washington, D.C. - Executive Director Shane Cory has stepped down this week from his staff position with the Libertarian Party.

'I have come to appreciate his talent and professional performance,' says Libertarian Party Chairman William Redpath, expressing his thanks for Cory's outstanding service to the LP. 'Also, as a personal friend. I wish him well and future success.'

'Shane was very productive and an excellent financial manager,' says Libertarian National Committee member Vice Admiral Michael Colley, USN [Ret.]. 'He got the Party back on the right page financially and did very well representing the Party in the nation's capital. He did well for us, and it's unfortunately been his personal decision to do something else with his energy.'

'It was a pleasure working with Shane during his time with the Libertarian Party,' says National Media Coordinator Andrew Davis. 'He was an asset to the libertarian movement as a whole, and we know he will continue fighting for freedom in this nation with whatever he does next.'

The Libertarian Party is America's third largest political party, founded in 1971 as an alternative to the two main political parties. You can find more information on the Libertarian Party by visiting www.LP.org. The Libertarian Party proudly stands for smaller government, lower taxes and more freedom.

It's interesting to note that the members of the Libertarian National Committee who commented on Corey's resignation refused to acknowledge the primary reason for Corey's departure from the national LP headquarters: his recent LP press release which implicitly attacked the Party's top presidential contender Mary Ruwart for her not-so-secret libertarian position on child pornography taken from her book Short Answers to the Tough Questions. The brouhaha, as many of the readers here very well know, was started when LP presidential candidate George Phillies, in response to several posts started by a troll on the Third Party Watch blog (who may have either been a Bob Barr supporter or a Wayne Allyn Root crony), posted Mary's question-and-answer position on child pornography. The troll, who's gone by the name Ruwarchy, has even attacked Mary for her position, and then a series of endless vitriolic exchanges between Ruwart's supporters, a certain segment of LP members disgusted with Mary's old answer on the issue, and Wayne and Barr supporters continued unabated.

Your press release was powerful in that it illustrates how libertarians can lead government (and society) into a more libertarian direction by using such controversial issues to express a better approach. You correctly balanced your statement condoning the need for greater communication between law enforcement agencies while simultaneously focusing upon protection of privacy rights. Further, you elucidated a clear libertarian perspective contrasting victim-less crimes (and the enormous resources wasted on them) versus real crimes such as those in which the the individual rights of the life and liberty of , in this case, children, are at stake.

Thank you for having the courage to express a libertarian perspective on such a matter and for defending the integrity of the LP on this issue. The last thing our party needs is to become associated with an anarchist viewpoint when it comes to the safety of children.

Shane & Andrew, you did an excellent job, as our Executive Director & our Media Coordinator, sharing a libertarian approach to a most difficult and tragic matter in our nation.

Christine Smith

As much I had originally liked Christine Smith (although I wasn't a fan of her candidacy), I was immediately disgusted with her endorsement of Corey's press release, which has been overwhelmingly condemned by many stalwarts in the Party. As far as I'm concerned, Smith isn't worthy of my support, just for her unprincipled support of the Party's unlibertarian support for federal enforcement of laws criminalizing child pornography. Because of that, she will not receive the delegates' support or even my support on that matter.

As I noted above, it's obvious that Corey resigned for one reason, and one reason only: he, along with the Root and Barr cronies, wanted to smear Ruwart in a concerted effort to ensure that either Root or Barr secure the LP presidential nomination. As a result, the tide turned against him, forcing him to resign in disgrace.

Dr. Ruwart was not talking about advocating child porn, nor did she ever say such a thing. Such nonsense was dredged up by a certain faction within the LP to discredit her and torpedo any chance of securing the LP presidential nomination. It was a crony of Wayne Root (or perhaps Bob Barr) who used this opportunity to smear Mary Ruwart, especially at a time when she did deserve this.

Your point about age of consent and child porn is correct; there's a distinction between the both of them. However, that's not the point. (However, the thing is that Mary's answer from the question posited in her old book was referring to teenagers (in the age of consent sense) and not the little toddler sense, as so many Root supporters want yout o believe. Yet, this is a discussion for another day, and I don't simply have the luxury to go into that now.)

The point is that Shane Corey implicitly attacked a presidential candidate under our Party's banner. And that candidate was, conveniently speaking, Mary Ruwart. Because of that attack, Mary simply didn't deserve it, whether she was right on the issue or not.

Read my blog further, and you'll find out that Corey even admitted to using the press release as a hit piece against her, although it was done indirectly. There are many sources which confirm this, even on Lew Rockwell's blog. (See Stephan Kinsella's take on the entire saga at http://blog.lewrockwell.com.)

The thing that you don't get, Christiana, is that, when this material first appeared in the book 12 years ago on the Liberator Online at the Advocates for Self Government site and in her book ten years ago, it wasn't an issue then. Not even a pragmatic libertarian at the time made an issue out of it then. And it wasn't exactly a secret either. So if it weren't an issue then, why is it an issue now?

It's an issue now because Root is desperate, to the point where he would sink so low as to find any way he possibly can to win the party's nomination, even if it means knocking a candidate out of the way. It's as simple as that, IMHO.

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